On trial in Sierra Leone: a new kind of international remedy for an old bloody problem

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Frances Gibb visits Freetown, where the UN Special Court is ready to hear the case against alleged war criminals in a conflict that claimed 75,000 civilian lives

THE ROOF and windows may be incomplete and the compound something of a building site, but the shouts from prisoners in their barbed-wire-fenced complex metres from the UN Special Court in Sierra Leone are a sign that they know its work is about to start in earnest. In May the first of 11 indictees will be brought before the court in what will be a testing time for the country as well as for the international community’s efforts to bring war criminals to account.

The court is unprecedented. Requested by the Sierra Leonean Government, and the UN Security Council, it